


Linger Sweetly All The Same

by RushingHeadlong



Series: Love Never Would Have Happened Quite This Way [3]
Category: Queen (Band)
Genre: Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Massage, Non-Romantic Relationship, Non-Sexual Intimacy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-16 06:40:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29696553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RushingHeadlong/pseuds/RushingHeadlong
Summary: Jamie helps Brian relax before the first show of the Back to the Light tour.
Relationships: Brian May/Jamie Moses
Series: Love Never Would Have Happened Quite This Way [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2125989
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	Linger Sweetly All The Same

**Author's Note:**

> Original idea from @tenderbri, though in keeping with everything I’ve written for this ship Brian and Jamie’s relationship here still isn't a romantic one.
> 
> This is also a fill for my DL bingo card for the prompt "massage".

There’s only a few hours left until the Brian May Band takes the stage for the first show of their tour, and Brian is seriously considering calling off the entire thing. He’s so nervous that he’s making himself sick, and between his stomach doing somersaults and the stress headache building at his temples he doesn’t know if he’s capable of going through with this. 

Cozy had taken one look at him and told him to get some rest before they go onstage. Brian wants to listen to that advice, and he has hidden himself away in his dressing room intending to calm down and maybe take a bit of a nap, but no matter what he tries he just can’t seem to relax.

The problem is that everything is just slightly _off_ , just a bit too _wrong_ , and his mind can’t stop cataloguing the differences between what’s happening here and everything that was normal for him with Queen. He keeps waiting for Jobby to come barging in, begging him to _please_ just finish tuning his guitars or else let him take care of it so at least it’s handled. He keeps straining his ears in hopes of catching Freddie and Roger caterwauling at each other from down the hall, or else John’s answering laughter as he watches their antics unfold. 

None of them are here, though. It’s just him now, and even with an entire band at his back Brian feels alone in this. The weight of everything they’re doing, their success or their failure, rests squarely on his shoulders. How is he _not_ supposed to feel sick from all that pressure?

A knock on the door draws Brian from his thoughts. Probably Cozy back to make sure he’s resting, or else Spike checking on him under the guise of needing to ask something about that night’s show. He doesn’t really want to deal with either them right now, but just in case this is about something important he calls out for them to come in. 

It’s not Spike or Cozy who walks in, though, but Jamie Moses, holding a cup of tea in his hand. 

“Hey. Heard you weren’t feeling well,” he says as he pushes the door shut with his foot. “Thought some tea might help. And I could probably find something a bit stronger to spike it with, if you think that would help too.”

Brian manages a faint smile at the offer. “Thank you, but I don’t think my stomach could handle anything stronger right now.”

“Alright, just the tea then,” Jamie says as he hands the cup over. “You think you’ll be alright in time for the show?”

“Once I get onstage I’ll be fine,” Brian says. He’s certainly performed while feeling worse than this in the past, though it’s never been a fun experience. 

“Once you get onstage you’ll just muscle through this, you mean,” Jamie says bluntly. 

Brian shrugs, an unspoken, _What can you do?_ and curls his hands a little tighter around the cup. The heat seeps out to warm his palms and there’s something almost familiar in the comfort that it provides.

(His mind dredges up a memory of reaching for Freddie after a show, the bare skin of his arm warm under his touch as Brian claps him on the shoulder - but Brian banishes those thoughts before the memory can become more bitter than sweet.)

Jamie sighs, the sound pulling Brian back to the present. “I don’t like the idea of you suffering through a show like that. Especially not the first of the new tour,” he says. “We can send someone out to get something-”

“No, no, please don’t,” Brian says quickly. “I’m not actually sick. Not like that, anyway.”

Jamie eyes him shrewdly, and Brian knows that he’s seeing through whatever flimsy mask Brian has been holding onto so far. Brian doesn’t know if it’s because of the “extracurricular” activities they get up to outside of the band or if Jamie is just naturally good at reading people, but Brian has quickly learned that he can’t really keep secrets from the younger guitarist.

“Nervous about the show?” Jamie guesses at last. 

There’s no point in lying so Brian just nods and asks, “Is it that obvious?”

“Well, it _is_ the first show of the tour. I’d be worried if you weren’t a little nervous,” Jamie says with a faint, teasing smile. 

Brian tries to smile back but it comes out feeling more like a grimace than anything else - and judging by how quickly Jamie’s own smile fades away, it no doubt looks just as bad as it feels. 

Jamie sighs again and asks, “Brian, are you sure there’s nothing that will help? ‘cause I meant what I said, I don’t like the thought of you forcing yourself through a show if you feel like shit.”

Brian can feel his smile softening into something a bit more natural at Jamie’s sincerity. He’s sweet, almost surprisingly so considering what else Brian knows about him, but his preferences in the bedroom have little bearing on the rest of his personality and above all else Jamie does genuinely _care_ about those he considers to be friends. 

“I’m sure the tea will help to settle my stomach some,” Brian says, holding up the cup that Jamie brought him. “And once my show is over the headache will go away too.”

“Headache?” Jamie echoes.

“From the stress,” Brian says. It’s one of the nastier tricks that his body likes to play on him, inflicting physical pain on him whenever he’s already going through more than his fair share of emotional turmoil.

Jamie cocks his head as he considers that, and after a moment he says, “I might be able to do something to help with that. That is, if you trust me?”

“Of course I do,” Brian says, without any hesitation. 

After everything they’ve done together Brian would have to be an idiot not to trust Jamie, even if he’s sometimes scared that whatever relationship they have is spilling out of the bedroom in ways that Brian can’t control. There’s a wide gulf between their work with the band and what they get up to in their off-hours, and something obviously needs to fill that space… but the unknown of what that _something_ could turn out to be still makes Brian nervous sometimes. 

Jamie grins warmly at Brian. “Good. Then budge up, May, make room for me on that couch.”

“Is this the point where I should be asking if you locked the door behind you?” Brian asks. He’s joking, at least a little, but if that _is_ what Jamie is offering...

“We’ll save that sort of “help” for the hotel room later,” Jamie says with a wink. “This is much more innocent than that, I promise you.” 

He plucks the cup of tea back out of Brian’s hand and sets it aside, before taking a seat on the couch. He turns so his back is to the armrest and he stretches out his legs, slipping one behind Brian’s back and letting the other sprawl off the front edge of the couch. The position leaves his lap almost obscenely wide open, and Jamie only brings more attention to that fact as he pats one thigh and says, “C’mon, lay down now.”

Brian swallows down the sudden dryness in this throat and raises an eyebrow at Jamie. “How “innocent” is this, really?”

“Perfectly innocent, if you lay down face _up_ ,” Jamie says with a laugh. “Trust me, Brian. I know what I’m doing here.”

“I do trust you,” Brian says again, a little softer now, the words almost meant more for him than Jamie this time. 

Brian lets out a slow breath and carefully moves so he’s lying down with his head in Jamie’s lap and his shoulders bracketed by his thighs. It’s not the most comfortable position, not with how tall Brian is, but he drapes his legs over the far arm of the couch and that makes it a little better.

He jumps when he suddenly feels Jamie’s hands touch his head, and Jamie chuckles softly and says, “Easy, Brian. Just try to relax, alright?”

Brian bites down the sarcastic, _What do you think I was trying to do before you showed up?_ that wants to slip out. Jamie doesn’t deserve to be treated like that, not when he’s only trying to help. 

“Alright,” he mumbles instead, and he tries to lower his shoulders from around his ears. 

Jamie helps him out by dropping his hands to Brian’s shoulders and gently starting to massage them. “You know, you’re supposed to be in knots at the _end_ of the tour, not the beginning of it.”

“I’m just getting ahead of the game this time,” Brian says. He groans as Jamie digs his thumbs into a particularly tight spot and starts to work out the knot and adds, “ _Oh_ , that feels good, though.”

“These fingers aren’t just good for playing guitar riffs, you know,” Jamie teases.

Brian laughs at that and he tilts his head back a little bit further so he can smile up at Jamie as he says, “Oh, believe me, I know.”

Jamie snorts and playfully smacks Brian’s shoulder. “For once, I didn’t mean it like _that_ ,” he says. “Though, if you _are_ looking for company later tonight…”

Brian definitely wants _company_ , but with how poorly he’s feeling now he’s not sure he’ll be up for the implied _more_ that Jamie is also offering, even after the show is over. “That’s going to depend on what shape I’m in later,” Brian says, a little apologetically. 

Jamie’s smile softens sympathetically. “Let’s see if I can’t do something to make you feel a bit better, then,” he says as he gently pushes Brian’s head so it’s level again. “Close your eyes now, c’mon.”

If it was anyone else but Jamie asking Brian to close his eyes and relax with his head in their lap, Brian knows that he couldn’t do it. He’s not used to letting people close like this anymore, not used to this sort of intimacy from another person outside of sex, and part of Brian is still scared of getting too used to this only to lose it like he’s lost so many other people and friendships in recent years. 

But because it’s Jamie, Brian takes a deep breath and closes his eyes and settles back into position. 

Because he knows that Jamie isn’t looking for their relationship to turn into anything _more_ than it already is. Because he knows that even if it feels like he has to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders, Jamie will try to share that burden whether Brian wants him to or not. And because he knows that Jamie doesn’t need him to be Brian May of Queen - he can just be himself, even if Brian isn’t always sure who that person is anymore. 

Jamie starts massaging small circles around Brian’s temples and across his brow. It feels surprisingly good and Brian sighs contentedly and relaxes under Jamie’s gentle touch. 

“That feel good?” Jamie asks, and even without opening his eyes Brian can hear the smile in his voice. 

“Mm-hm,” Brian hums. It does feel good, and he can feel some of the pressure from his headache starting to fade away. “Keep that up and you might just put me to sleep.”

“That wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world,” Jamie says. 

Brian shifts a little, but keeps his eyes closed. “You probably have better things to be doing-”

“I don’t,” Jamie interrupts gently. He brushes one hand along Brian’s hair, silently coaxing him to settle down again, and adds, “And I don’t mind staying here with you, if you want me to.”

There’s still a part of Brian that feels like he should say no, that he shouldn’t make himself a burden on his new bandmates like that, that he should be able to push through his loneliness and anxiety by himself… But he knows that’s never worked in the past. And just because he doesn’t have the rest of Queen here to pull him back into the light, that doesn’t mean he should turn down what support is being offered to him instead. 

So he lets out a small, shaky breath, and simply says, “Stay. Please.”

Brian feels Jamie lean down and press a soft kiss to his forehead. “I’ll stay as long as you need me to,” he promises.

Brian knows Jamie well enough by now to know that he truly means that, and it makes Brian’s chest feel warm with the sort of affection that he never though he’d feel again after Freddie’s death brought about the end of Queen. To find it again here and now, means more than Brian has words for - but luckily, he knows that he doesn’t need to explain any of that to Jamie. 

All he needs to do is relax as Jamie keeps massaging away his headache and if he slowly starts to doze off… Well, he knows that Jamie will look after him while he sleeps. 


End file.
